


Promises and Lies

by i_claudia



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-05
Updated: 2010-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-11 05:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/475119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He follows her out of the chamber, catches her before she’s halfway down the corridor, yanking her slender wrist until she’s facing him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises and Lies

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Great Merlin Slam Fest](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/45011.html). Originally posted [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/45011.html?thread=1024723#t1024723). (5 January 2010)

He follows her out of the chamber, catches her before she’s halfway down the corridor, yanking her slender wrist until she’s facing him.

“You aren’t telling me something,” he says, and when her eyes widen in false innocence he levels a glare at her. “We agreed that there would be no lies between us at the beginning.” He’s might be in love but it hasn’t make him blind; seen the way she looks at Ygraine, seen the way the worry lines her face and pulls her lips tight with fear. 

She tries to tug her wrist away, but he turns the motion into something bigger, twisting until her back hits the wall hard enough to make her wince. For a moment he has an urge to place a hand around her neck, shake her until she tells him what’s gone wrong, but he puts his hand on the wall by her shoulder instead, leaning in until their noses nearly brush, until she’s pressing herself back into the stone to try to create distance between them.

“No lies, Nimueh.”

“Uther,” she says. There’s something fragile behind her eyes but he can’t tell what it is, what it means. “It’s nothing, I promise. It’s no more than a feeling, a suspicion.”

Her eyes are the same shade as Ygraine’s, the same deep cornflower blue, and he searches them for lies, for any deception. She meets his gaze squarely, and after a moment he steps back to let her go. He presses the heel of his palm against his eyes, against the steady ache that hasn’t faded since the first time Ygraine went pale and nearly fell, one hand on her too-large belly, the other reaching out for him. He’d caught her that time, but fear has made a home in his breast now, clutching tight at his throat when he looks at her.

Nimueh takes his hand in both of hers, pulling it away from his face and squeezing gently before releasing it. For a moment he thinks she’s going to say something, but in the end she just gives him a small, sad sort of smile and walks away. He watches her go for a minute before turning in the opposite direction, going back to sit by Ygraine’s bedside. They will get through this, the three of them, and at the end of it they will number four. Ygraine will be rosy-cheeked again, smiling as their son burbles happily and bounces on her lap; the vision is so close he can almost touch it, taste its sweetness.

He settles in the chair he’s barely left for a week, and imagines the sound of Ygraine’s laughter mixing with their son’s.

**Author's Note:**

> There was going to be more of this where Nimueh comes back during/after the Great Purge and confronts Uther and he’s all conflicted and yells at her a lot and she pins him against a wall with magic and he can’t stop looking at her eyes because they’re so much like Ygraine’s and they’re both hurting so much from the loss of her and then they were maybe supposed to have angry sex which succeeds in making neither of them feel better, but neither of them wanted to go there.
> 
> Also at one point there was going to be Uther/Merlin against a wall because he sees flashes of Nimueh in Merlin, but... yeah that didn’t want to happen either.


End file.
